Author: Yusuf Olaniyan
When we began our Researcher in Residence placement with the Mayor of Bath, our original question was about what makes schools feel amazing for children and what makes them feel less so and how this contributes to attainment. Like many research projects, however, our focus evolved as we started listening more closely to the people already working on these issues every day.
From attainment to attendance
Our early conversations with Bath and North East Somerset (BaNES) were an important turning point. They shared what has already done to understand educational attainment gaps and the interventions currently in place to address them. What became clear very quickly was that this was not a space where more measurement alone was needed.
Instead, together with the Council and Mayor, we began asking a different question about what happens out of school and, who is not always making it through the school gates, and why?
Attendance emerged as a key area where our research could complement existing work. While attainment data from the Council tells us a great deal about outcomes and attainment, attendance helps us understand something more fundamental, particularly, children’s daily relationship with school and outside school:
Do they feel welcome? Safe? Motivated? Do they feel that school has something meaningful to offer them?
Shifting our focus to attendance also allowed the project to better align with the Mayor’s theme of 'Education is Empowerment', not as a slogan, but as a lived experience.
Listening across the system
Since then, progress has been shaped by conversations rather than surveys or rankings. We have met with BaNES to understand the local context, and ambitions, and we have spoken directly with the Mayor about how research can support a whole-systems approach to education.
One of the most encouraging parts of this journey has been seeing how open partners have been to dialogue. Rather than asking, 'What is working or not working?', which many people have been more interested in asking, we are interested in 'What does school feel like for children and families right now?'
Building trust, carefully
Alongside this, we have been putting the necessary ethical application in place. Our DBS checks have now been approved, and our ethics application has been through a full review process at the University of Bath. This has been an important part to make sure that all conversations with children, families, and professionals are guided with ethical principles.
We have also met with the Chair of Heads of Schools to discuss access to schools and to be clear about what this research is and is not. We emphasised in our meeting that the project is not about monitoring, judging, or ranking schools. It is about listening to stories, understanding experiences, and learning from the amazing things that are doing. With their support, we have started recruiting and following up with schools.
Where we are now?
At this stage, one month in, the project feels less like a traditional research study and more like a conversation unfolding across the local education system. We hope to be learning by listening to council teams, school leaders, teachers, charities, parents, and, most importantly, young people themselves.
As the work continues, our aim remains to help uncover the everyday experiences that shape attendance, engagement, and belonging, and to feed those insights back into local thinking in a way that is useful, humane, and grounded in real lives.
I believe that education, after all, is not only about results. It is about whether children feel that school is a place for them.
If you’re working in these areas, whether locally, nationally, or even internationally, and would like to get in touch, Gopika and I would love to hear from you. Please do comment below or email us directly.
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